Today, 2022-07-10, the president and prime minister of Sri Lanka agreed to resign amid widespread riots after complete economic collapse and national bankruptcy. NBC News reports “Sri Lanka president and prime minister to resign after tumultuous protests”.
Sri Lanka’s president and prime minister agreed to resign Saturday after the country’s most chaotic day in months of political turmoil, with protesters storming both officials’ homes and setting fire to one of the buildings in a rage over the nation’s severe economic crisis.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he will leave office once a new government is in place, and hours later the speaker of Parliament said President Gotabaya Rajapaksa would step down Wednesday. Pressure on both men grew as the economic meltdown set off acute shortages of essential items, leaving people struggling to buy food, fuel and other necessities.
Police had attempted to thwart promised protests with a curfew, then lifted it as lawyers and opposition politicians denounced it as illegal. Thousands of protesters entered the capital, Colombo, and swarmed into Rajapaksa’s fortified residence. Video images showed jubilant crowds splashing in the garden pool, lying on beds and using their cellphone cameras to capture the moment. Some made tea, while others issued statements from a conference room demanding that the president and prime minister go.
Sherman, set the WABAC machine for August, 2018, destination, the Cologny, Switzerland headquarters of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which sponsors the annual Bond villain convention in Davos and has infiltrated its minions in governments and corporations world-wide.
That’s the date, 2018-08-29, when the WEF published an article by Ranil Wickremesinghe, prime minister of Sri Lanka, which laid out his bright plans for the country for development along WEF lines in the now delightfully ironically titled “This is how I will make my country rich by 2025”.
This is an important moment in Sri Lanka’s development, as the country continues to deliver on its plans for economic development and stands on the cusp of a transition to a knowledge-based economy.
Since the country and its people saw a vibrant transition in its political landscape in January 2015, further bolstered by the August 2015 general elections that formed a national unity government – a first ever political experience for the country since its nearly seven decades of independence – Sri Lanka has put in place many of the building blocks needed to reinvigorate its socio-economic and political architecture.
We have achieved many positive gains over the last three years through bold policy initiatives and pragmatic strategies, that enabled the country to win back recognition and friendly engagements with the rest of world. This has been a key foreign policy achievement of our government. Doors are open again for constructive and friendly engagements that have eased economic and political pressures. However, as per the expectations of all our people, there is more to achieve and the government plans with due diligence to make Sri Lanka regain its centrality in the Indian Ocean and become a knowledge-based, highly competitive hub with a dynamic social-market economy.
Ahhh, yes…the old “social-market economy” trick. Who could seen how that would end up?
The government has also invested in some mega projects, including the Colombo Megapolis constructions – to build a city of the future – and irrigation projects including the Moragahakanda-Kaluganga Dam, to generate green energy and provide water resources for agro-production.
Government “mega projects”—well that worked in…hold on…my mind has gone blank.
How’s that WEF strategy working out for you, Ranil?